Greatest Bowler

Wanted to do this for a while. We have done greatest spinner (won by Warne), greatest pacer (Marshall came out on top), but never the greatest bolwer overall. There also seems to be a recent swell of support for Lillee on the site, plus without the restriction of pace or spin that may help Barnes as well. Of course there is always Murali so really interested to see how this one would turn out.

Well yeah Tendy is probably better than Bradman, but Bradman was 70 years ago, if he grew up in the modern era he'd still easily be the best. Though he wasn't, can understand the argument for Tendy even though I don't agree.

Voted for Warne. I'm surprised Murali has 4 votes and Warne had none before mine. There's nothing between Murali and Warne stayistically if you remove Bangladesh NZ against whom Warne didn't play much. The poll should honestly reflect how close it actually is, but so far it doesn't.

Warne's the most complete bowler I can think of... A hoard of wickets, great overall stats everywhere except India, one of the best ever big match performers, aesthetically just perfect (imo THE most elegant bowling action ever), and he mastered what's considered to be the most difficult form of bowling. The way he used a specific plan to work over any batsman put in front of him (as long as he wasn't Indian ) was one of the great joys of watching cricket for me. His ability to use all the tools at his disposal, the big leg break, the crazy drift, the best flipper of any spinner ever(pre-injury) , the deadly slider, and last but not least get into the batsman's head and screw with his concentration while for the most part not going overboard with the sledging, all made him fascinating to watch.

So while I think that old argument of Warne being some sort of "savior of spin bowling " is utter nonsense, I do think he was utterly special. How many truly great leg spinners had made it to ATG level before Warne? One or two maybe and I wager it'll be ages before we see a leg spinner as good as him.